This thesis investigates sensorimotor adaptive mechanisms that maintain the accuracy of goal-directed saccades in amblyopia, a developmental disorder characterized by impairment of spatiotemporal visual processing. Saccadic adaptation was induced by displacing the visual target toward initial fixation during the saccade. Eleven visually normal controls and seven patients with amblyopia were tested binocularly and monocularly with the amblyopic and fellow eye (non-dominant and dominant eye in controls) in three separate sessions. Patients with amblyopia exhibited reduced adaptation of saccadic gain compared to controls when viewing with the amblyopic eye and binocularly. Initiation of saccades was also delayed in patients when viewing with the amblyopic eye. It is proposed that the adaptive ability to modify the initial saccadic motor commands for maintaining short-term saccadic accuracy is impaired in amblyopia due to imprecise error signals. Moreover, this thesis reaffirms the notion that the error signals driving saccadic adaptation are visual in nature.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/35669 |
| Date | 16 July 2013 |
| Creators | Raashid, Rana Arham |
| Contributors | Wong, Agnes Ming-Fong, Goltz, Herbert |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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